# Kill zones (ICT) > Named intraday time windows — Asian, London open, New York open, London close — defined on the New York wall clock, inside which the ICT methodology concentrates its setups. - Canonical: https://hadalinstruments.com/glossary/ict-kill-zones/ - Term set: https://hadalinstruments.com/glossary/ --- A kill zone is a clock label, and the first honest thing to say about it is exactly that. The ICT taxonomy names four recurring intraday windows and concentrates its playbook inside them: an **Asian** window in the late New York evening, a **London open** window in the early New York hours, a **New York open** window mid-morning, and a **London close** window around midday. All four are defined on the New York wall clock — which is a genuine decision, not a detail, because a boundary has to live in someone's timezone and it rides that timezone's daylight-saving switches. A kill-zone table quoted without its clock is unfalsifiable; two tables can both be "right" while disagreeing by an hour twice a year. The second honest thing: **published boundaries disagree**. Different teachers, different summaries and different tools carry different edges for the same named window, sometimes by half an hour, sometimes more. That is why a serious statement of the windows is a configuration — one convention, stated, with the disagreement acknowledged — rather than a fact about the market. An over-the-counter market has no opening bell; every boundary in this vocabulary is a choice somebody made. What the windows are for, inside the method: the composite setups of the taxonomy — the [liquidity sweep](/glossary/liquidity-sweep/) into a [market structure shift](/glossary/market-structure-shift/), the [judas swing](/glossary/judas-swing/) at a session open — are taught as time-filtered, taken inside a kill zone or not at all. That is a composition rule of the method, reported here as such. ## The four windows, one at a time Under the convention this page states, in New York time: - **Asian, 20:00 to 00:00.** Taught as a range-building window, whose high and low are marked as resting liquidity for the sessions that follow. - **London open, 02:00 to 05:00.** Taught as the window of the day's first directional move, and the home of the false move at the open that the [judas swing](/glossary/judas-swing/) names. - **New York open, 07:00 to 10:00.** Taught as the main window of the day. It overlaps the London afternoon and contains the 08:30 slot of many scheduled United States releases and the 09:30 equity open. - **London close, 10:00 to 12:00.** The window in which London's trading winds down. For most of the year it contains the 11:00 New York hour, when the 16:00 London benchmark fix prints; in the weeks when only one of the two cities has changed its clocks, the fix lands at 12:00, on the window's edge. Inside several of them, the [ICT macro times](/glossary/ict-macro-times/) mark shorter windows of twenty to thirty minutes on the same clock. ## The windows in other time zones The windows live on the New York clock, so their local times depend on two things: the place's own offset from UTC, and whether New York is on standard or daylight time. Most of these places keep one offset all year, so for them every window moves by an hour when New York changes its clocks. Each time in the two tables is local, converted through the tz database. While New York is on standard time, from the first Sunday of November to the second Sunday of March: | Place | Asian | London open | New York open | London close | |---|---|---|---|---| | New York (UTC−5) | 20:00–00:00 | 02:00–05:00 | 07:00–10:00 | 10:00–12:00 | | United Kingdom and Ireland (UTC+0) | 01:00–05:00 | 07:00–10:00 | 12:00–15:00 | 15:00–17:00 | | Ghana (UTC+0) | 01:00–05:00 | 07:00–10:00 | 12:00–15:00 | 15:00–17:00 | | Nigeria (UTC+1) | 02:00–06:00 | 08:00–11:00 | 13:00–16:00 | 16:00–18:00 | | South Africa (UTC+2) | 03:00–07:00 | 09:00–12:00 | 14:00–17:00 | 17:00–19:00 | | Kenya (UTC+3) | 04:00–08:00 | 10:00–13:00 | 15:00–18:00 | 18:00–20:00 | | United Arab Emirates (UTC+4) | 05:00–09:00 | 11:00–14:00 | 16:00–19:00 | 19:00–21:00 | | Pakistan (UTC+5) | 06:00–10:00 | 12:00–15:00 | 17:00–20:00 | 20:00–22:00 | | India (UTC+5:30) | 06:30–10:30 | 12:30–15:30 | 17:30–20:30 | 20:30–22:30 | | Vietnam (UTC+7) | 08:00–12:00 | 14:00–17:00 | 19:00–22:00 | 22:00–00:00 | | Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines (UTC+8) | 09:00–13:00 | 15:00–18:00 | 20:00–23:00 | 23:00–01:00 | While New York is on daylight time, from the second Sunday of March to the first Sunday of November: | Place | Asian | London open | New York open | London close | |---|---|---|---|---| | New York (UTC−4) | 20:00–00:00 | 02:00–05:00 | 07:00–10:00 | 10:00–12:00 | | United Kingdom and Ireland (UTC+1) | 01:00–05:00 | 07:00–10:00 | 12:00–15:00 | 15:00–17:00 | | Ghana (UTC+0) | 00:00–04:00 | 06:00–09:00 | 11:00–14:00 | 14:00–16:00 | | Nigeria (UTC+1) | 01:00–05:00 | 07:00–10:00 | 12:00–15:00 | 15:00–17:00 | | South Africa (UTC+2) | 02:00–06:00 | 08:00–11:00 | 13:00–16:00 | 16:00–18:00 | | Kenya (UTC+3) | 03:00–07:00 | 09:00–12:00 | 14:00–17:00 | 17:00–19:00 | | United Arab Emirates (UTC+4) | 04:00–08:00 | 10:00–13:00 | 15:00–18:00 | 18:00–20:00 | | Pakistan (UTC+5) | 05:00–09:00 | 11:00–14:00 | 16:00–19:00 | 19:00–21:00 | | India (UTC+5:30) | 05:30–09:30 | 11:30–14:30 | 16:30–19:30 | 19:30–21:30 | | Vietnam (UTC+7) | 07:00–11:00 | 13:00–16:00 | 18:00–21:00 | 21:00–23:00 | | Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines (UTC+8) | 08:00–12:00 | 14:00–17:00 | 19:00–22:00 | 22:00–00:00 | The United Kingdom and Ireland show the same local times in both tables because their clocks change too, on different Sundays, which leaves a few weeks a year when they are an hour out. Toronto keeps New York's clock. Sydney and Auckland change their clocks in the opposite season, which gives them three different conversions a year, so they are left out rather than given one row that is wrong for part of it. ## The weeks when the clocks disagree New York moves to daylight time on the second Sunday of March and back on the first Sunday of November; the United Kingdom moves on the last Sunday of March and the last Sunday of October. For the two or three weeks between the March dates, and the week between the October and November dates, London is four hours ahead of New York rather than five. The windows stay fixed on the New York clock, so in those weeks each one starts an hour earlier in London time: the London open window runs from 06:00 to 09:00 London time, and the 16:00 London fix lands at 12:00 New York time instead of 11:00. A session table that holds London's local times fixed through those weeks disagrees with this one by an hour, and neither is wrong; the two have put the boundaries on different clocks. ## Markets without an open The windows are applied unchanged across markets, including markets with no open of their own. Spot currencies and spot gold trade around the clock on weekdays, and crypto trades every day without a close, so in those markets a window is purely a clock label. Equity index futures also trade nearly around the clock on weekdays, but the cash index they track opens at 09:30 New York time, inside the New York open window, and that open is a scheduled event in a way the other boundaries are not. Whether a window behaves differently in one market than in another is a comparison between markets, and each side of it needs its own measurement. ## Common mistakes Reading the windows off a broker's server clock without converting, which moves every edge by the server's offset. Keeping one fixed UTC table all year, which is wrong for part of it because the windows ride New York's daylight-saving switches. Treating the window with the most activity as the one with the most advantage, when the two are different things. And crediting a window with a move that belongs to a scheduled release inside it. ## What a window does not carry What the label does not carry is an effect. Hours of the day genuinely differ — activity, participation and typical range all have hour-of-day base rates that any seasonality table shows. The claim a kill zone smuggles in is that its named windows differ from those ordinary base rates, and that is a measurable proposition, not a definitional one. Until a window has a measurement beside it, it is a label on a clock — useful for saying *when* a method acts, silent on whether the clock deserves the credit. The [two lenses](/glossary/the-two-lenses/) apply: describing a window is one thing; claiming it contains something is another, and the second needs evidence. Where the windows themselves are the question, the [forex session clock](/tools/forex-session-clock/) renders the sessions and the four named kill zones against the New York wall clock, with every boundary editable and none of them locked. That is the disagreement above treated as a setting rather than settled quietly in one direction. ## Commonly confused with Neighbouring concepts that get used interchangeably, and the distinction that actually separates them. - **Trading sessions** — Sessions are the broad market-hours blocks — Sydney, Tokyo, London, New York — spanning most of a day between them. Kill zones are narrow sub-windows the methodology carves out of those sessions. Every kill zone sits inside a session; almost none of a session is kill zone. - **An opening range** — An opening range is defined by price — the high and low printed in a window after an open. A kill zone is defined by the clock alone. One is a range that needs the window plus the tape; the other is just the window. - **Hour-of-day seasonality** — Seasonality is the measured base rate of activity by hour and weekday — an estimate computed from data. A kill zone is a declared label. Whether a named window differs from what plain seasonality already explains is precisely the question a measurement answers and a label cannot. - **News windows** — Scheduled releases create their own volatility windows pinned to the calendar, not the clock — non-farm payrolls moves with its release date. Kill zones recur daily regardless of the calendar, and a release landing inside one changes the window's character without changing its name. ## How to measure it in your own data A definition you cannot test is a definition you have to take on trust. This is the shortest honest route from the concept to a number you computed yourself. - **Records you need** — Timestamped price data with an unambiguous timezone, converted to New York wall-clock time via the tz database — never a fixed offset, because the boundaries ride New York's daylight-saving switches. - **What you compute** — Per-bar occupancy flags for each declared window, with the window table stated as configuration. Any claim about a window — range, activity, behaviour — is then a comparison of in-window bars against out-of-window bars at matched hours, judged against ordinary hour-of-day base rates. - **What the answer tells you** — There is nothing to see: a kill zone is a clock label, not a chart pattern. What is checkable is the discipline around it — whether the boundary convention is stated, whether the clock handles daylight saving, and whether any claim about the window survives comparison with plain seasonality. ## Questions and answers ### What are the ICT kill zones? Four named windows on the New York wall clock — commonly taught as an Asian window in the late New York evening, a London-open window in the early New York morning, a New York-open window mid-morning, and a London-close window around midday New York time. The methodology concentrates its setups inside them. ### What time are the kill zones exactly? Published boundaries genuinely disagree, and that disagreement is the honest answer. One common convention: Asian 20:00–00:00, London open 02:00–05:00, New York open 07:00–10:00, London close 10:00–12:00, all New York time. A source that states its convention and its clock can be checked; one that does not cannot. ### Why are they defined in New York time? Because boundaries must live in somebody's wall clock, and the taxonomy chose New York's. The choice matters twice a year: a window pinned to New York wall time moves against GMT at each daylight-saving switch, which is exactly when session tables across the internet quietly fork. ### Do kill zones actually work? That is a measured question wearing a label. Hours of the day differ in activity as a matter of ordinary seasonality; the live question is whether a named window differs from what those base rates already explain — and the answer belongs to data, not to a definitions page. ### How many kill zones are there? Four in the common teaching: Asian, London open, New York open and London close, each defined on the New York wall clock. Their boundaries are where published sources disagree; the count of named windows is not. ### What time are the kill zones in UTC and other time zones? Convert from New York time, whose offset from UTC moves with daylight saving. Under the convention above, while New York is on standard time (UTC−5, early November to mid-March) London open runs 07:00–10:00 UTC, New York open 12:00–15:00, London close 15:00–17:00 and the Asian window 01:00–05:00. While New York is on daylight time (UTC−4) every window sits one hour earlier in UTC. From UTC, apply your own offset. ### What time are the ICT kill zones in India (IST)? India keeps one clock all year, UTC+5:30, so the conversion moves whenever New York changes its clocks. While New York is on standard time: Asian 06:30–10:30, London open 12:30–15:30, New York open 17:30–20:30 and London close 20:30–22:30 IST. While New York is on daylight time every window is an hour earlier: 05:30–09:30, 11:30–14:30, 16:30–19:30 and 19:30–21:30. ## Where it sits in the ICT sequence The ICT vocabulary in the order the method is taught, with a step for each kind of object. - **Step** — 01 of 08 [Time](https://hadalinstruments.com/ict/#step-time): the hours the method watches - **Also at this step** — [ICT macro times](https://hadalinstruments.com/glossary/ict-macro-times/), [ICT weekly profiles](https://hadalinstruments.com/glossary/ict-weekly-profiles/) - **Before it** — Nothing: the sequence starts here - **After it** — [ICT macro times](https://hadalinstruments.com/glossary/ict-macro-times/) Time - **Every step** — [The ICT vocabulary map, with every term defined](https://hadalinstruments.com/ict/#vocabulary) ## The shape, drawn The smallest arrangement the definition admits. It is a drawing of a rule, not a reading of a market — nothing here is measured, and the table below it is the authoritative version. FIG. 01 ILLUSTRATIVE The four named windows placed on the New York wall clock, drawn as one stated convention: the edges are a configuration this page declares, not a fact the market publishes. Drawing a window establishes when a method acts. It does not establish that the window differs from the ordinary hour-of-day base rates every seasonality table already shows. Source [Frozen definition set — detectors S0.1 and W1.15](https://hadalinstruments.com/ict/#ledger) SHA-256 NOT APPLICABLE — ILLUSTRATIVE, NOT A MEASUREMENT Kill zones (ICT): what the definition states, in full. Window | Stated convention | London open | Early New York hours. | New York open | Mid-morning, New York. | London close | Around midday, New York. | Asian | Late New York evening. | Clock A boundary has to live in someone’s timezone; this one lives there deliberately. | The New York wall clock, riding its daylight-saving switches. | Edges The drawing puts three published edge sets for the SAME window side by side and calipers the spread between them, rather than picking one and calling it the table. | A configuration, stated. Published boundaries disagree. | Daylight saving A broker server clock an hour off moves every edge by an hour, twice a year, without anything about the method changing. | The windows ride the New York clock’s switches. | Broker offset The same window sits at a different server time per broker, which is why a window quoted without its clock cannot be checked by the person reading it. | Displayed. | Macro windows Not drawn, because a figure implying they were on would misstate the shipped default. | Off by default. | Not established | That a named window differs from ordinary hour-of-day base rates. | ## Work it out yourself Free calculators that take this concept as an input. Each shows its working, so the number it gives you can be checked rather than taken on trust. - [Forex session clock](https://hadalinstruments.com/tools/forex-session-clock/) Market open or closed, and how long until · Four sessions, live, in two clocks ## Related terms Derived from the links this entry makes and the entries that link back to it. - [ICT 2022 model](https://hadalinstruments.com/glossary/ict-2022-model/) The entry sequence taught in ICT's 2022 mentorship: a sweep of a prior high or low, a displaced market structure shift that leaves a fair value gap, and an entry on the return into that gap. The silver bullet is the same model restricted to three one-hour windows. - [ICT daily bias](https://hadalinstruments.com/glossary/ict-daily-bias/) The direction a trader expects the day to take, stated before the session from higher-timeframe structure, the nearest imbalance and the next draw on liquidity; in ICT teaching, a call on whether the day is more likely to reach the liquidity above the previous day's high or below its low. - [ICT macro times](https://hadalinstruments.com/glossary/ict-macro-times/) Short windows on the New York clock, twenty to thirty minutes long, which ICT teaching singles out as the minutes price is most expected to run for liquidity or turn. - [ICT weekly profiles](https://hadalinstruments.com/glossary/ict-weekly-profiles/) Templates for when in the trading week the week's high and low form, such as a Tuesday low in a bullish week or a Thursday reversal after a quiet start. ICT teaching uses them to anticipate the rest of a week from its first days. - [Judas swing](https://hadalinstruments.com/glossary/judas-swing/) A session-open counter-move: the first directional push after a declared open that sweeps a resting pool and then gives way to a move the other way — named for the betrayal. - [Liquidity sweep](https://hadalinstruments.com/glossary/liquidity-sweep/) Price trading through a prior swing high or low — or a cluster of equal highs or lows — and then closing back inside the old range, read as a run on the stop and entry orders resting beyond the level. - [Market structure shift (MSS)](https://hadalinstruments.com/glossary/market-structure-shift/) A counter-trend break at an intermediate or higher swing tier — the change-of-character event graded up by the significance of the swing it takes, often required to arrive with displacement before it counts. - [New week opening gap (NWOG)](https://hadalinstruments.com/glossary/new-week-opening-gap/) The price range between a market's last close before the weekend and its first open after it — in ICT teaching, Friday's 17:00 close and Sunday's 18:00 open in New York time — kept on the chart with its midpoint for weeks. ## Where the term is in build Detector datasheets whose concepts include this term, or whose published copy uses it. Each one states the build state it has reached and the parameters it exposes, and carries no measured verdict. - [Opening Gap Indicator](https://hadalinstruments.com/ict/opening-gap-indicator/) NDOG and NWOG drawn from the census of real halts — sized, tracked, and honestly scoped. in build - [Session & Killzone Clock](https://hadalinstruments.com/ict/session-killzone-clock/) One wall-clock authority — sessions and killzones, DST handled once, edges editable. in build - [Judas & Silver Bullet Models](https://hadalinstruments.com/ict/judas-silver-bullet-models/) The named model sequences as composed events — sweep, shift, window — with full lineage. in build ## Cite This Definition APA BibTeX HTML Hadal Instruments. (2026). Kill zones (ICT). Hadal Glossary. https://hadalinstruments.com/glossary/ict-kill-zones/ Version 252c820, 2026-09-15. @misc{hadal_2026_ict-kill-zones, author = {Hadal Instruments}, title = {Kill zones (ICT)}, year = {2026}, url = {https://hadalinstruments.com/glossary/ict-kill-zones/}, howpublished = {Hadal Glossary}, version = {252c820}, note = {Pre-launch publication; version dated 2026-09-15} } Source: Hadal Instruments, Kill zones (ICT). Original Research Copy Citation **Version 252c820** identifies the commit that last changed this page in Hadal's content repository. That repository is not public, so the identifier does not resolve externally — it is published so a citation pins one specific state rather than a moving page. To obtain the exact version cited, use the [press and research route](https://hadalinstruments.com/press/).